Buckets with steel cutting edges in the form of front edge plates of hardened material are used for allowing penetration into material masses such as loosened ore, blast stone material, earth etc. to be lifted by the bucket for further transport. The cutting steel is often protected by a set of wear parts that can be fixed to the front edge of the bucket, for example through any form of locking element or in certain cases through welding.
The main task of the wear part is to protect parts of the bucket behind it from wear, allow easy penetration or masses in order to reduce wear and energy consumption and if possible shorten the cycle path for filling a bucket. A bucket provided with well functioning wear parts can also be used more aggressively as concerns penetration into material to be transported, which results in a time and costs reduction as concerns its use.
The use of wear parts on buckets also results in that the time periods between services of the buckets can be extended which is an economic advantage.
Through the patent publication US 2005/0172524 A1 is previously known a wear part intended to be fixed to a front edge plate of a loading bucket. The known wear part has a hook portion for the engagement with an engagement edge of the front edge plate and a fastening portion for fixing of the wear part to the bucket. The fastening portion has a hole for receiving and co-operation with a fastening unit which is intended to be applied through a hole also in the front edge plate. The described wear part functions generally well but requires, for obtaining adequate function, a relatively costly manufacturing process. As a further example of the background art, U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,529 can be mentioned.